DESERT MOUNTAIN MUSIC
-serving Ahwatukee, Chandler, Gilbert, Anthem, Prescott
-offering Music Together classes since Fall 2000
Have you ever wondered what you can do to nurture the musical growth of your child, regardless of you own musical ability?
Experience Music Together and find out how important--and how fun--your role can be!
We believe that music ability is as much a basic life skill as walking or talking, and that all children can achieve basic competence in music provided their early music environment is rich. Basic Music Competence is defined as the ability to sing in tune, keep a beat, and participate with confidence and pleasure in the music of our culture, including instrumental study if one so chooses.
WHAT IS MUSIC TOGETHER?
Music Together is an internationally recognized early childhood music program that began as an educational project of the Center of Music and Young Children in 1985. Through ongoing research and development, the program continues to evolve and expand. Music Together serves over 2,000 communities worldwide and touches thousands of children and their parents by bringing music-making into family life.
Music Together classes are based on the idea that making music with children, in the family, and in a community of families......
- Enriches the lives of both children and parents
- Promotes musical growth in children, optimizing musical APTITUDE and future success in music
- Should be FUN!
Music Together is a music and movement approach that develops every child's opportunity for BASIC MUSIC COMPETENCE by encouraging music experience rather than the learning of information about music. Children experience the various macro and micro beats that are in music, experiment with their vocal mechanisms in high and low ranges, learn to use their upper and lower adjustments to sing, and repeat both rhythm patterns and tonal patterns in a variety of meters and modalities. They are also exposed to the various chord structures contained in eastern and western music.
A Music Together class is not a "music lesson".
It is not performance-based, nor is it a model for musical perfection.
It IS a model for DOING music with your child!
It is a relaxed, playful, participatory, EXPLORATORY experience.
Infants coo, gurgle, and flex their torsos in response to music. Toddlers shake rattles, bounce to the beat, and sing occasional notes. Three-year-olds often have favorite songs and instruments to play and can "lose themselves" in music. Four-year-olds like to have an effect on the activity--creating ways to move or inventing new words to songs.
Classes are made up of 6 to 12 children each child accompanied by a parent or caregiver.
Ten weekly, 45-minute classes include songs, rhythm chants, movement, and instrument play. These activities are presented as informal, non-performance-oriented musical experiences--developmentally appropriate for children and easy for parents and caregivers--regardless of their own musical ability. Two CD's and a Songbook with the current session's music selections are included!
The songs are presented through a variety of musical activities which incorporate....
-- Fun playful, interactive ways to focus on tonal and rhythmic elements of music
-- Small and large movement
-- Free, expressive dance
-- Instrumental accompaniment (egg shakers, jingle bells, sticks, rhythm instruments)
-- Use of props (scarves, dynabands, etc.)
-- Opportunities for improvisation by children as well as parents
Classes have a characteristic flow which allows for various ages to all participate and make music together, each at his own level. Certain rituals, such as the Hello Song at the beginning, and the sequence of Instrumental Jam Session, Lullaby, and Goodbye Song, at the end of class, help children internally pace their involvement and aid in classroom management.
Parent education during class will increase your understanding of the relevance of class activities to childhood music development.
Music Together parents discover what a powerful ROLE MODEL they are to their child, just by having fun with the music themselves. In doing so, they often find that their own musicality flourishes as well.
Interactions are parent-child not child-child as in a preschool setting.
-- Our goal is to create an environment of family music making. Classes have more of a family feel rather than a school orientation. siblings can participate together, as well as moms, dads, grandparents, and caregivers.
-- A child's stage of musical development does NOT strictly coincide with his/her age.
-- The Music Together curriculum offers many levels of instruction SIMULTANEOUSLY.
-- Early childhood educators are now recommending mixed-age groupings as a better learning environment promoting social development and self-esteem. Older children learn from being in a leadership role, and younger children benefit from the example of an older child.
Yes! Infant participation will seem passive at first, as they actively absorb what they are seeing, hearing, and feeling.
Through reading the parent guide and through parent education in class, parents will learn to recognize their infant's musical responses and observe them reaching musical milestones.
As their bodies and nervous systems mature, the infants often show progressively more complex musical responses and evidence of song recognition.
Parents will learn in class how to enhance their child's music development and to create or enhance the musical bond with their child.
An Optional INFANT/BABIES CLASS is offered as a one-semester introduction for infants eight months and younger. Parents of babies may choose to attend this class or a MIXED-AGE CLASS. Both are developmentally appropriate for infants.
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